Painswick parishioners are fed up with a wonky bin at the bus stop in Edge, having been told there is not enough cash for a replacement.

“All the rubbish just blows out on the road - it’s been tilted like this for ages,” parish chair Martin Slinger told the SNJ by the bin, which has fallen over but been caught on a nearby tree’s branch.

 

“It’s bad enough as it is with all the drivers going to and from Gloucester chucking things out the window.

“We just need a new post.”

Martin and the rest of the parish council say they have been reporting the bin, owned by Stroud District Council, for the past five months.

Their clerk had most recently asked the district council for a fix at the end of October, only to be told there was no cash.

 

“There is currently no budget to replace the bin, nor do we have any spare in storage,” a warden from the district council responded in an email.

The warden instead suggested the parish council could find a less well-used bin that could be moved to the bus stop.

Now, having been approached by the SNJ with the story, the district council has agreed to straighten the bus stop bin - but it is telling parish councils to not expect any replacements if more break.

“When parish and town councils request a replacement bin we suggest that they first find a less well used bin within the parish and replace it with that,” a district council spokesperson said.

"Once it became clear that it was just the post that needed straightening we agreed to carry this out.”

There are 27 litter and dog waste bins in the Stroud district that have been reported as damaged and not replaced since 2016, Freedom of Information requests made by the SNJ have revealed.

A district council spokesperson said this was partly because a change in legislation means dog waste can now be put in litter bins, making replacing a broken dog waste bin already by a little bin redundant.

However, our FoIs also show the council has not bought any new litter bins in that time, only more dog waste bins.

The spokesperson added: “In addition to litter bins provided by parish and town councils, and private landlords and developers, Stroud District Council has 1,421 litter and dog waste bins across the district which are emptied every week.

“Of those, just 27 or 1.86 per cent have been removed because they were broken, or caused an obstruction, were unfit for purpose, or were next to another bin or dog waste bin – a change in national legislation means dog waste can be deposited in litter bins.

“Each bin is lined with a plastic bag and we are conscious that we do not want to increase plastic waste further, so we are looking at ways of avoiding this in future.

“Littering is a criminal offence and the vast majority of people are able to take their litter home or find one of the 1,421 bins that we empty every week, and dispose of it correctly.”